Technology Innovation Challenge

This challenge involves student teams building a technological solution (robot or dedicated device) that demonstrates creativity in design and application. Each technology solution should be related to one or the 17 UN sustainable development goals and provide a prototype that can solve the goal.

Teams must bring their prototypes unassembled to the challenge and will be given 3 hours to re-assemble and finalise a demonstration for the judges. Judges will then review each team’s demonstration of their solution one-by-one.

The challenge is judged on their creativity, use of technology and how well the solution meets the needs of the problem. Team members must be actively engage and contribute to the presentation in some way. Some presentation can involve software and hardware components.

Getting Started:

If you have never built a technology solution before, here’s how to get started in this competition …

Identify a simple problem in real life that could be solved using a robot or dedicated device.

Research the types of robots (made using Lego, JoinMax, Arduino or similar) or the types of technologies (Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Sensors and Actuators) that might be useful in solving the problem. Also explore the programming languages that would be useful and type of programming needed to control these technologies.

Purchase the necessary components and software and get started constructing and trying various algorithms to enable your robot or technology to perform its task.

Note: the robot or technology does not need to be completely unique, but must be completely constructed by student teams with strictly limited adult support leading up to the challenge.

Already Experienced:

If you already developed some great inventions, robots or technological solutions before, here’s how you can become more competitive in this competition …

Optimise your programming to perform the task more efficiently (reducing costs, reducing processing time, introducing connectivity between devices or the Internet, etc).

Identify the environmental conditions that your solution works well in and explore how you might improve its operating tolerances.

Develop detailed documentation to accompany your demonstration that could be provided to the judges for further information.